Klaus Fjalar Nordling was born in Pori, Finland on May 29, 1910 according to a family tree at Ancestry.com. He was the only child of Gustaf Ribert and Aili Karoliina. The family sailed aboard the S.S. Oscar II from Copenhagen, Denmark on August 22, 1912; they landed in New York City on September 3. Nordling's father was a self-employed photographer as recorded on his World War I draft card. They lived at 4213 8th Avenue in Brooklyn, New York.
The Nordlings were recorded in the 1920 U.S. Federal Census at the same address. Nordling's father had been in the U.S. since 1903. In 1930, they lived at 4015 7th Avenue in Brooklyn. Nordling's first name was recorded as "Frank" and his occupation was a clerk in the diplomatic industry.
The Ridgefield Press (Connecticut) reported the death of his wife, Lilja Heta Tellervo "Tel", on December 5, 2003; excerpts from the article:
"Mrs. Nordling was born in Cambridge, Mass., on March 30, 1910, thesecond of four children. Her Finnish-born parents, Risto and Milma Lappala, moved the family to Virginia, Minn., where they established a Unitarian ministry and raised their children among the forests, rivers and lakes of the north woods. True to her Finnish heritage Tellervo was named for a woods-maiden in the Finnish national epic, the “Kalevala,” and had a deep and life-long love of nature and the outdoors.
She was educated as a librarian, and lived briefly in Germany as a student until the imminent outbreak of World War II brought her back to the United States. Besides being fluent in Finnish, she also became proficient in German. She met Klaus Nordling, a cartoonist and comic book artist, while she was working as a translator for a Finnish newspaper in Brooklyn, N.Y. They married in March 1937, and lived in Brooklyn and Minnesota until moving first to Redding [Connecticut], and then in the mid-1940s to Florida Hill Road in Ridgefield [Connecticut], where Mr. Nordling worked at his home studio."
According to Who's Who in American Comic Books 1928-1999, Nordling began his career as a gag cartoonist and caricaturist for Americana Magazine in the early 1930s, and then produced Baron Munchausen in the mid-1930s. The late 1930s saw his entry into the comic book field. An overview of his comics career is at Wikipedia; a list of his comic book credits is at the Grand Comics Database.
During the mid-1950s the newspaper, Bridgeport Telegram (Connecticut), reported on his theater work as an actor and director. Nordling passed away on November 19, 1986, in Ridgefield, Connecticut, according to the Connecticut Death Index.